"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
-33-
JANUARY
31, 1686 --France. The Duke of Savoy declares amnesty is at an end, and
the Waldensians are ordered to become members of the Church of Rome. An
Edict is issued forbidding the exercise by the Vaudois of their
religion, and their places of worship are ordered demolished. Pastors
and schoolteachers refusing to be converted are ordered to quit the
country within fifteen days upon pain of death, and the confiscation of
all their property. All Protestant refugees from France are ordered to
leave under the same terms. All children born of Protestant parents are
to be compulsorily educated as Roman Catholics.
31, 1834 --Burma. Adoniram Judson, who read Buchanan’s Star in the East
and became sensible of God’s calling him to leave New England for Burma,
today completes his translation of the Word of God into Burmese.
31, 1892 --France. At 11:00 this Sunday evening, Mr. Charles Haddon
Spurgeon dies in the Hotel Beau Rivage in Mentone, France. On his tomb
can be found the words, “Here lies the body of Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
waiting for the appearing of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” This
Baptist preacher has been called the greatest preacher since the days of
the Apostle Paul.
His pastorate at Park Street Church has grown from one hundred people to
a crowd of ten thousand when he preached at the Surrey Gardens Music
Hall. He has established the Pastor’s College, the Stockwell Orphanage
and has edited the monthly magazine, the Sword and Trowel. He leaves
behind nineteen hundred sermons including various books among which is
Our Own Hymn Book, the Treasury of David --which is a three thousand
page commentary on the Psalms, and the Gospel of the Kingdom --which is
a series of expositions of the book of Matthew.
31, 1933 --Germany. Adolph Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany. In
four weeks, Communist saboteurs will burn the Reichstag, which is the
parliament building. The following day he will discard the constitution
and create a dictatorship by forbidding freedom of speech and of the
press, as well as invading the privacy of the mails, and by calling an
end to public meetings. Search and seizure, originally illegal is put
into force.
“There is the suggestion of the
present hour: if the world will not come to Jesus ... shall not the
church go down to the world? Instead of bidding men to be converted, and
come out from among sinners, and be separate from them, let us join with
the ungodly world, enter into union with it, and so pervade it with our
influence by allowing it to influence us. Let us have a Christian world
. . ..
“Certain ministers ...are treacherously betraying our holy
religion under pretense of adopting it to this present age. The new plan
is to assimilate the church to the world. ... By semi-dramatic
performances they make houses of prayer to approximate to the theatre;
they turn their services into musical displays ... in fact, they
exchange the temple for the theatre, and turn the ministers of God into
actors whose business it is to amuse men . . .. This, then, is the
proposal. In order to win the world, the Lord Jesus must conform
Himself, His people, and His Word to the world. I will not dwell on so
loathsome a proposal.
“My dear hearers, how much I long to see you saved! But
I would not belie my Lord, even to win your souls, if they could be so
won. The true servant of God is responsible for diligence and
faithfulness, but he is not responsible for success or non-success.
Results are in God’s hands. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon